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Virtual assistance will make banking more convenient

BNP Paribas’ Genius will give consumers what they want – a virtual assistant that improves user convenience rather than just providing insight into their personal finances.

In recent years, there has been an increase in banking in the use of virtual assistance providing insight into people’s finances, with weekly spending at frequented merchants often highlighted to consumers.

Although this kind of insight is perhaps interesting, it does not help consumers in any material way. It is no surprise that virtual assistants providing insight into personal finances were rated as the second least popular of the nine most common personal financial management (PFM) tools currently on the market as per GlobalData’s 2018 Retail Banking Insight Survey. Only automated investment portfolio suggestions was less popular.

Learning from this, BNP Paribas has launched Genius, which is capable of analysing spending trends to suggest when users should save.

There is clear demand for such a service, with 67% of French millennials saying they would use an app with this functionality according to GlobalData’s survey. Genius also classifies purchases and payments (which is wanted by 58% of millennials) as well as alerting users of unusual transactions or cash flow problems they might have (48% of millennials claim they would use this feature).

In addition, the virtual assistant will also provide general tips to improve banking behaviour.

Genius is a good example of a virtual assistant adding value to the customer experience. Providers implementing PFM tools need to focus on delivering clear, material benefits if they want to increase customer engagement and improve satisfaction.